Scars
by Princess Persephone
Summary: It's the summer after the fiasco at the Department of Mysteries. Ron tries to hide his scars, and Hermione must make him realise that he's not the only one with pain.


Scars

By Revi J.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, places, or things in this story; just thought I'd put a little of me into J.K. Rowling's amazing characters.

Ron climbed the rickety stairs up to his room in disgust. He supposed stomping wasn't quite the thing an almost-sixteen-year-old would do, but he didn't really give a crap. His mother had stumbled upon a scene that hadn't at all been his fault (how was he to know that the ghoul in the attic would react so violently?) and now she was making him de-gnome the garden before dinner.

It really wasn't fair, he decided as he slammed his bedroom door behind him. Above him, he could still hear the ghoul clanking around, howling like mad. After making a nasty face at the cheerful, vibrant orange Chudley Cannon posters on the walls, Ron grabbed his broom and gave the ceiling a good smack. "Shut up, you stupid piece of trash!" he bellowed. "It's your fault I'm in the mess, so quiet the bloody hell down!" The ghoul ignored him, and if anything, howled all the louder.

Muttering obscenities, Ron pulled off his shirt and decided he was in a horrible mood. Digging through the mess on his bed, he tried to find an old shirt that his mum wouldn't mind getting dirty. After a particular loud crash in the attic, Ron flinched and found himself staring at the mirror. He straightened up and walked over to it.

The scars he had gotten in the Department of Mysteries in June were still vivid on his arms. Occasionally they still twinged a bit, especially at night when he had nightmares, but during the day, they were pretty much okay. Ron lifted an arm, and brushed it carefully with his fingers. Madame Pomfrey had said that in time they would fade, but how long was "in time"? He dropped his arm and glared at the swirling, red scars on his arms, as if he could will them away. They were so ugly! He'd worn long sleeves ever since that day at the Ministry. Even this summer when it was unbearably hot and the only way to cool off was to go swimming, Ron had still worn long sleeves. He didn't want anyone to see them. It was embarrassing, having these ugly scars all over you. If someone saw them, Ron knew they'd stare for a bit, and then turn away, not saying anything, but remembering everything. He couldn't stand it. Harry had a scar too, but it was barely visible under his bangs, and he'd had it all his life. A thin, lightning-shaped scar didn't compare with these ugly, vivid marks on his arms—and they'd been from thoughts, no less. Ron supposed that if it hadn't happened to him, he wouldn't understand how thoughts could cause such deep, ugly scars. But it _had_ happened to him, and he understood.

Turning away in distaste from his mirror, Ron went back to his bed, searching for a long sleeved shirt to wear, when there was a knock at the door. Thinking it'd probably be his mum to yell at him about not getting down the garden fast enough, or his dad coming up to have a "Father-son-talk", Ron sighed wearily.

"Come in," he called, still staring at his bed, looking for a shirt. "I'll be down in a minute."

He turned around to find not his mum or dad, or any member of his family, but a rather flushed, wide-eyed girl with bushy hair. Ron blushed when he realised she was staring at his bare chest.

Hermione swallowed a little difficultly. _Really,_ she thought in a daze, _what was he thinking, letting me come in when he's half dressed? _But try at she might, Hermione couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from his broad expanse of chest_. He's really rather handsome_, she decided, _with his shirt off_. And as if realising what she that just thought, her eyes popped up from the trail of golden-red hair leading down into his trousers and up to his eyes.

Ron had watched her amusedly as she had stared at him, and blushed all the harder when he saw her blush, but he suddenly realised something.

He wasn't wearing a shirt.

Well, he knew he wasn't wearing a shirt, but that meant his arms were exposed. And when his arms were exposed, so were those ugly, vivid, twisting scars on his forearms. Of all the people to see those horrible scars, it had to be Hermione. Scarlet embarrassment flooded his face, and he turned away from her, starting to search frantically for a shirt to wear.

Damn it! Why had she come up here, anyway? And where the hell was his bloody shirt?

"Ron, you should know better than to let someone into your room while you're half dressed," Hermione said, plopping down on his bed. She picked up one of his Martin the Mad Muggle comic books and flipped through it, while actually watching him, from over the top, move bare-chested about the room. "What if it had been someone important, or a Death Eater or something?"

Ron snorted. "I don't think someone important would ever come up to my bedroom door, or that a Death Eater would knock." He pushed some clothes to the ground and continued searching, feeling Hermione's eyes on him. "Why did you come up here, anyway?"

"Your mum wondered what was taking so long, so I volunteered to check out the situation for her," Hermione answered, laying down the comic book. She looked up at the loud, rude noises coming from the ceiling. "When do you think he'll calm down?"

Ron looked up too. "Dunno. Once he went on for three full weeks after Fred and George tested one of their experiments on him. He only stopped when mum started yelling back at him. I think she's the only thing he's scared of."

Hermione laughed, picturing Mrs. Weasley standing in Ron's room, yelling back at the howling ghoul to shut up. It must have been quite a spectacle. She looked at Ron, and noticed that he was still digging through the clothes on his bed.

"What are you looking for?" she asked.

"A shirt to go de-gnoming in," he answered shortly.

Hermione frowned. "You mean a long sleeved one?" she asked, her tone betraying how she felt. Ron had been only wearing long sleeved shirts all summer, and it was getting on her nerves. So he didn't want anyone to see his scars, she could understand that, but really, he was acting a little childish.

Ron didn't look at her, but he felt his ears go red. What did she know about it? Hermione didn't know what it was like, walking into a room with people staring at your arms. What was he supposed to say when someone asked him how he had gotten the scars? _Oh, yeah, my friends and I were deceived by Voldemort into going into the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic because we thought Sirius Black (you know, that guy who was in Azkaban for killing thirteen people?), well, he's Harry Potter's godfather, and he's actually innocent, and we thought he was being killed, but it was just an illusion, and I got high off of something and giggled like school boy, and then reached into a basin filled with floating brains and they attacked me and, well, you can see what they did. How was your weekend? _You couldn't just say that to someone.

Ron was suddenly conscious of a hand on his arm and flinched. Hermione pulled away.

"Does . . . Do they still hurt?" she asked softly. She knew he needed to talk about this with someone. She should have confronted him in the hospital wing in June, but everyone was too wrapped up in Sirius's death.

Abandoning the mass of clothes on his bed, he sighed and sat down next to her, admitting defeat. "Usually only at night," he answered hoarsely. "I still have nightmares . . ."

They were sitting so close together they were almost toughing. Hermione looked down at her hands. She knew that the scars on his arms didn't hurt half so much as the scars the brains had left in his mind. And for Ron to be so ashamed of something that he couldn't fix . . . It made her sad. Turning slightly so that their legs touched, she looked at his arms. The scars were harsh red, covering his forearms. It looked like he had been beaten with a whip, the welts were so linear, but if he had, it must have been an unusual one, for the scars twisted and turned in spirals over. Slowly, she took one of his hands and looked closely at the healing skin above it, tracing one of the harsh red lines with a finger.

Ron gasped slightly as she did this. Only Madame Pomfrey had touched his arms so gently after June, and then only to rub an ointment into them and to assess the damage. But Hermione was . . . she was almost, well, _stroking_ him. It felt so soft and light, a caress. Her fingers brushed up from his wrist to his elbow, softly feeling, tracing the red lines on his arms. She turned his arm over and slowly bent down. Ron could feel her light, warm breath on his arm when she suddenly pressed her lips softly to the inside of his wrist. Ron gasped, the sensation sending a warm quiver through him. He felt his heart pound, and as her lips moved up to the inside of his elbow, giving soft butterfly kisses, he breathed heavily. The scars didn't seem quite that bad if she was going to touch him like this. No one had ever done something so sweet to him.

All at once, pain shot through his mind, hot and white, a hoarse scream echoing inside his head. Ron wrenched his arm away from her and doubled over, trying to keep the pain inside. He had bouts like this every once in a while, but it was usually after a nightmare. The first two weeks after that night at the Ministry, the pain had followed him around every day, usually much stronger than this. The memories were fading, as the scars were, but they resurfaced once in a while. After a minute or so, all that was left was a slight stinging and a winded Ron.

"You see?" he asked, straightening up, jumping off the bed and starting to pace. "Do you see how ugly they are? I've had to deal with this since June. Do you know why I've been hiding them under long sleeves all summer? I don't want anyone to see how ugly they are." He was panting, trying not to let her see how much that episode in front of her had hurt him deeper than the pain had. He was ashamed. "The scars are usually fine all day, but at night . . . At night I get these horrible dreams. Nightmares from places dementors have never even been. The pain is so bad I can hardly stand it . . . Do you see why I don't want anyone to know? They're my constant reminder that I didn't help Harry or you, or Luna or Ginny or Neville, or anybody in June. Ginny told me I was laughing about Uranus—"

"Ron, shut up!" Hermione was too angry to listen to his frantic explanations anymore. She stood up too. He had stopped pacing, his back to the bed, and stared at her, seemingly amazed that she had stopped him from ranting. "I know you want to cover them up, but everyone knows you've got them. Everyone saw them before; they won't just think they've gone away just because you've covered them up with clothes. I know they're a bad memory, but in time they'll go away. You have to stop thinking about them—"

"You try not thinking about the next time you're hit with white-hot pain so bad that you can't see. About how you practically abandoned your friends during a duel—"

"How do you think I feel, Ron?" she bellowed back. "I was out of it too! At least we both went with Harry to the Ministry. We didn't abandon him; we just were knocked out before he was—"

"Don't give me that!" he yelled back, his face red with exertion. "And don't tell me to try and forget about my scars like that will make everything all right. You don't know what it's like. You don't know how I feel—"

"You're not the only one with a scar, Ron!" Hermione was nearly hysterical. Tears stung her eyes and she was out of breath from yelling at him. She turned away from him and walked over to the mirror.

Ron opened his mouth furiously, but closed it with a loud snap, wanting to retort but not knowing what to say.

A silence settled on the room. Ron was still angry, but he had to admit she was right. He wasn't the only one with a scar. He had been scarred by the brains, everyone had been scarred by Sirius's death, and Hermione had been scarred by that damn Death Eater. Ron remembered waking up in the hospital wing and seeing Hermione out cold, having Madame Pomfrey explain about her condition, and how he wanted Hermione to wake up more than anything in the world. Now he felt stupid for saying she didn't know how he felt. She knew what he felt better than anyone else did.

Hermione stared at herself in the mirror, eyes red from crying, and face tense, ready to yell. After a moment she started undoing the buttons on her blouse part way.

"Sit down," she said tersely to Ron, still undoing her blouse, preparing herself for his reaction.

Ron sat, a frown on his face, wondering what the hell she was doing. He felt he needed to offer her an apology, but when she turned around, he couldn't speak.

Her face was set in a determined, angry scowl, and she was holding her blouse down so that her upper chest was exposed. Just above her heart was a large, purplish-red scar, angry and harsh against her pale, soft skin. It reached from the bottom of her neck and kept going down into the rest of her blouse that wasn't exposing skin, stretching across half of her chest.

Hermione walked toward the bed and sat down, watching Ron look at her.

"You're not the only one with a scar, Ron," she said again, much softer this time.

Ron looked away. "At least you can keep yours covered all the time," he muttered rather bitterly.

"I'm showing it to you now," she reminded him, reasonably. "And if you've noticed, I haven't gone swimming or worn anything lower than a high-necked T-shirt all summer." Hermione paused, not sure how to continue with this, but glad that they had gotten farther than shouting at each other.

After a moment, Ron looked at her scar again, wondering if perhaps Hermione knew what he was going through better than he had first thought.

"Does it still . . . hurt?" he asked timidly.

Hermione nodded. "I get winded pretty easily, and Madame Pomfrey said I shouldn't exert myself too much." She scooted closer to Ron. "I still have nightmares about that day in the Department of Mysteries. About the man with the baby head and Harry and Neville and all the Death Eaters . . ." she paused a moment, ". . . and you. After . . . After I woke up in the hospital wing after everything, I wondered where you were."

"By then Mum came, and I was in Madame Pomfrey's office—"

"I know," Hermione cut him off quickly. "But . . . still." She traced the quaffle that was being held by one of the Chudley Cannon players on his bedspread.

Ron nodded. He looked at her scar again. In some ways it seemed worse than his. He knew that it had taken a rather long time for Madame Pomfrey to wake her up, and that even after she had woken up, Hermione had had trouble breathing. Come to think of it, she still had trouble breathing sometimes. And yes, she could cover it up, but she couldn't play Quidditch or go swimming or anything. It had probably been a little straining just to climb up the stairs all the way up to his room.

Without thinking, Ron leaned forward with his hand stretched towards her. Hermione held her breath, surprised. He looked up at her, the question burning in his eyes.

"Can I . . .?"

Nodding quickly, Hermione prayed he wouldn't feel her thumping heart.

His fingers were warm and gentle, softly brushing her scarred skin. He leaned closer, getting in a better position. Hermione could barely breathe. He was so close, and he was touching her, fingers gently sweeping across her skin. No one had ever done this to her before. She wasn't sure what to do.

"Does it hurt?" he asked. Hermione was aware that he was breathing very heavily.

"No," she whispered, leaning closer to him, her own breathing labored.

She saw him swallow and lick his lips and she almost fainted. She wasn't often this close to Ron, and it felt very special, very good to be so close to him; very right. She didn't think anything had ever felt so right before.

And then, Ron leaned forward, his mouth inches from her upper chest, from her scar. She felt his breath on her neck, and it sent delicious shivers down her spine. Her stomach was flipping over so fast she was afraid she'd throw up. He leaned forward an inch . . .two inches, and then, he kissed her. At the first contact of his lips on her skin, Hermione couldn't breathe. She bent her head back and closed her eyes, feeling his lips trace butterfly patterns on her skin. His breath was warm and he started to trail a string of kisses up the side of her neck. Hermione felt his hands slowly, and rather shyly, come to rest on her hips, shifting her closer to him. He was gasping in her ear, holding her close. She turned her head and softly kissed his cheek. It seemed all the encouragement he needed, for he continued the trail of kisses over to the corner of her mouth.

Their mouths brushed once. So swiftly and light, the next moment it seemed that it never really happened. Hermione figured they were like a magnet, being drawn closer and closer together. And all at once, she leaned forward, buried her hands in his bountiful red hair, and pressed her lips to his. It was the most amazing sensation she had ever felt. Here she was, kissing Ron Weasley, her best friend. And liking it. Liking it immensely. Their mouths moved slowly, hungrily, glad to have what they'd both wanted for a long time.

Ron didn't know how long they spent kissing on his bed, but he knew it must have been a while. After a while they broke apart, and Ron just held her, breathing in the fresh smell of her hair, aware of little, random things; like how she was wearing the perfume he'd gotten her for Christmas, and how their bodies fit together so well. He felt Hermione brush her lips against his bare shoulder, a last, lingering butterfly kiss.

The moment was ruined, however, by a blaring shriek and exaggerated banging from above. The ghoul, during the past twenty minutes or so, had calmed down and not made so much as a noise (at least not one loud enough to bother Ron and Hermione); but now he seemed to think that things had gotten too quiet, and started up with his howling again.

Ron and Hermione sprang apart, both not knowing where to look. Deciding it would be better to glare at the ceiling, Ron grabbed his broomstick again and prodded the ceiling rather forcefully.

"Shut up, you," he growled. The ghoul paid no attention to him.

It was perhaps somewhat fortunate that the ghoul had taken that moment to start up again, for in the next second, a yell was hurdled up the stairs to Ron's room, a yell that sounded very strongly of a disgruntled Mrs. Weasley.

"RONALD WEASLEY! I TOLD YOU TO DE-GNOME THE GARDEN AN HOUR AGO! YOU'D BETTER HOP TO IT IF YOU WANT YOUR DINNER!"

Ron felt his ears burn. He had sort of forgotten that he had to de-gnome the garden, what with Hermione in his room and all. Biting his lip, he hesitated to do what his mum had told him to. He didn't want to just leave Hermione after that . . . that . . . _thing_ that had happened between them; but then, he didn't know what to say to her, either. So he ended up standing in the middle of his room looking very indecisive as the ghoul howled loudly above him.

Hermione was still blushing after what had happened, and sat on the bed, picking at the loose threads on the orange comforter. Her hair was untidy and ruffled from their kissing, as were her clothes, (particularly her blouse, which was gaping open some around the chest), her lips red and swollen, and her toes were still tingling. But that didn't stop the bad feeling she felt swirling around in the pit of her stomach. Oh, _why_ had she allowed him to kiss her? She knew things would end up this way. He'd probably try to pass it off as nothing and go down to de-gnome the garden without even thinking that anything had changed between them. She sighed despairingly and felt her shoulders slump forward.

"Er . . . Her--Hermione . . ." Ron was nervous as hell. His whole body shook, and the butterflies in his stomach had turned to feisty dragons that were threatening to leap up and out of his mouth.

"I was, well, wondering . . ." he trailed off, trying hard not to stare at the scar on her chest and imagine where it led.

"Yes?" Hermione asked, looking at him. His hair was still standing up strangely from when she had run her hands through it, his ears were pink, and she thought he was still a little out of breath. He looked so cute when he was nervous, though what he was nervous about, she didn't really know.

"Uh . . . well, I was wondering if maybe . . . well, maybe you and I could . . .er—well, that is to say . . ." He ran a hand through his hair nervously, not even noticing the scars on his arms. Bloody hell, why was this so damn hard? He was talking to Hermione, his best friend, for Merlin's sake! But somehow, this still seemed a million times worse that asking a girl to the Yule Ball, like in Fourth Year. Much worse.

He had just decided to suck it up, figuring that the very possible worse thing she could do was to laugh at him and run out and snog Malfoy (somehow, this seemed unlikely, since she had all but just snogged him), when above him the ghoul gave a deafening, thunderous, raucous bellow that made the walls around him shake uneasily.

Ron, forgetting all about what he was about to say, looked up at the ceiling and roared loudly, "SHUT UP YOU GREAT UGLY BRUTE! YOU MESSED UP MY ASKING HERMIONE TO BE—" He stopped, horrified at what he had just said, a rather green colour coming into his face.

"To be _what_, Ron?" Hermione was suddenly standing up beside the bed, trying to hide her anxious anticipation. Was he really asking her to . . . She could barely breathe at the thought.

"Uh . . ." Ron's skin turned red again, the colour covering his face and chest, till he was almost certain that every square centimeter of him must have been blushing. "Well, I was going to—"

"Yes? You were going to ask me," Hermione interrupted, stepping a little closer, "to be, what?" She decided that it would take two hours for him to get there if she didn't prod him along some of the way.

"Right," Ron said, swallowing difficultly. "I was going to ask you to be my . . . well, maybe we could—" Ron stared at his feet. He thought it might be easier if he didn't look at her, then he wouldn't have to see her watching him and get distracted by her eyes, but it only made him burning with curiosity to see her reaction. Then, of course, if he looked back up at her and told her, there was always the possibility that she'd be disgusted and run off and snog Malfoy (or, possibly worse, _Snape_), so it was back to looking at his feet.

"Yes?" Hermione asked again, stepping even closer to him, hoping . . .

"I was wondering if you'd . . . well, if you'd be my, er . . . girlfriend—"

Ron was whispering so softly to his shoes she had to strain to hear him, and he was so afraid to look up, his fear of spiders paled in comparison, but that didn't stop Hermione from gasping, letting out a great yelp, and throwing her arms around him almost as soon as the last word left his mouth. She gripped him hard and kissed him squarely on the mouth, too happy to think, much less talk. Ron was so surprised, he almost forgot to close his eyes and kiss back, but he eventually remembered, and did. He supposed, as she kissed him, that it hadn't been that bad, asking her to be his girlfriend. In fact, as Hermione's mouth opened and he wrapped his arms around her, he was very certain that asking her had been very easy, indeed.

The kiss was broken after a time, and the two were starry-eyed with happiness, their faces flushed, hearts beating like a running jackrabbit, the ghoul howling above them all them time.

Hermione seemed to come to her senses first and, smiling broadly, she whispered, "You'd better go down and de-gnome the garden before dinner." She supposed Ginny would be looking for her. What a story she had!

"Yeah, yeah," Ron answered, with a rather dazed look on his face, almost grinning too hard to speak. "Yeah, I'd better go down." He kissed her cheek and started for the door.

"Ron?" Hermione called as he reached for the doorknob.

"Yeah?" he turned back around.

Her smile grew even bigger and it seemed that she was trying very hard not to laugh.

"Uh . . . don't you think you'd better—well—put on a shirt before you," she made a gesture at the door, letting out a snigger.

Ron blushed.


End file.
